"I was an extreme introvert...I'm meeting plenty of random people all the time"
Wait? How does this disprove or prove your introversion and or change to extroversion?
People think not being around others is introversion...and it isn't. It is where do you get your energy from. An extrovert will find energy by being around people in ANY activity...not just ones that are hand chosen. An introvert generally has to be in their comfort zone before they can deal with others...they are able to gain more energy from their comfort zone that they may now expend on being around others.
I am a HUGE introvert...and I was a stage performing / touring musician for years. Being an introvert, it make aquiring people skills a little harder, but I made them...and when I did I was able to seem very outgoing under certain circumstances.
BTW -- the sports you list? Very introvert friendly...they are all about being able to focus on you internally, and less about the external.
That said, personality generally is set early on...but people can make a concerted effort (or even a situational one) and change with time. If you were in one of my grad courses, my profs would have used you as an example of not knowing what introversion and extroversion are...then again, unless you are in the field, I wouldn't expect someone to require in depth knowledge (and yeah, the standard def is pretty accurate for 90% of what people use it for).
"if people CAN cheat at a test, there's something wrong with the testing method. change your test, don't punish people for outsmarting the education system!"
I have grad degrees in psychology and my main focus of studies are in experiential learning and assessment of said learning.
And from a certain realistic stand point, you are right. We can't catch all the cheaters, and testing methods need to make it more fair, meaning that we need to balance things out.
That said, who the fuck has the knowledge to create system like this? I can safely say, I'm considered expendable by my university because I'm too expensive for the little work I can do. Should every instructor also be forced to take 4 years of graduate psych in order to learn how to get into students heads and figure out how to ask appropriate questions? Right now, it is near dead impossible to get teachers to ask very probing questions in the first place...but we also know that if students don't cheat -- we have a pretty good idea of what they know even with the lack of appropriateness in the testing procedures / rubric.
It is nice to claim their is a problem with the testing method, but who is going to pay for the fix? Students already complain that their schooling is costing more and more -- and a good portion of this comes from the fact that we have to go out of our ways to make things fair for those that can't follow the rules. We have to expend good monies on people because of politically correctness (some because idiot students require too much of it, some of it because idiot administrators seem to think that being forced not to be overtly biased against anyone that doesn't think like they do should be able to do so). So now you expect more. And I'm certain if you were asked if you wanted an increase in the cost of your school, you'd say no. Last year at my school, the faculty actually put out a ballot item about increasing the budget -- and said why it needed to be done, and everyone (97%) voted against it...and the same people complained that those services the budget was needed to be increased for complained that they didn't get any of this.
I grew up in the south for much of my childhood. I didn't touch tea again until my 20s because I was convinced it all tasted like sugary pop as one of the posters mentioned. Ended up having nothing to drink but iced tea on a hot day at college, tried it...and it tasted pretty good.
As for bad strong tea, I think this sentiment could be added to any food...I like banana cream pie, but if it is bad, tasting especially strong isn't going to make it any better...it might make me even never want to touch banana cream pie again!
Sugar in tea? Seriously? That ruins it. That said, I grab about 3 or 4 green iced teas from SB's every day...no added water, no syrup (they make it strong so they can store it smaller containers, and dilute it when fixing the drink).
So drink it strong...and it won't taste like water.
Of course it was a scam, Microsoft screwed more people out of money than anyone will ever know and any time someone complains on their forums too much, the message disappears. Or they claim the payment was paid and the comment is closed...and then the user is banned where they can't complain any more.
I've had a dozen purchases canceled.
I made certain to check prices with and without Bing. A lot of times, if you used Bing, the price was jacked up...if you looked at the price elsewhere with a second browser you'd get a better deal dollar to dollar. If you counted the cash back, it was still not that much better, but I'm all for delayed gratification even if it is only $5.
Sadly, more often than not, Microsoft would send notes saying that the purchase was not made correctly and the cash back would be canceled. They claimed a few times that the product was not really a cashback item...even when there was a banner advertisement FROM THE RETAILER on the side with the specific reward. Or they will say that the purchase never went through. OR just not respond at all.
Every time you'd go through proper channels, and they'd request information -- screenshots or otherwise -- it was always someone with a script. If you managed to get something escalated, the support person would ask for the same information the next time you asked, and if you said you sent it, they'd say that apparently the issue was closed since you didn't send it. or throw out a THE RETAILER DETERMINED IT WAS A 37B ISSUE (or something like that, of which the issue had NOTHING to do with the terms of service quoted).
I tried using this service, and for 2 months it looked like I was getting about $300 back...and I lost all but $20 of this about 60 days after the purchases. Long enough to keep using the system thinking I was getting something and ended up getting scammed...
Microsoft scammed too many people with this Bing...they knew their retailers were abusing this and went along with it to get users. I will never use their service regardless of how good it may every be. On some things it was better than google, but you couldn't pay me at this point to touch their shit...it just made me realize how bad I hated Microsoft in the past and realized they haven't changed...
"You'd take away their children, and you don't think that's punishment? You're human scum. I'm done talking to you."
You seem to read a lot into what I say, that I didn't say at all.
CPS for the most part ensures that children stay WITH their parents, and gives their parents a lot more safety nets.
Ignore the cases you hear in the newspapers -- the majority of which that actually show how unfit someone is to parent -- in my field of work I see the opposite...these organizations make sure kids have every opportunity and that the parents get the help they need. Very little about it is taking kids away except as a last resort.
But if you want to stay uninformed, and get the Faux News abridged versions of what happens in these cases...go ahead. Talk to anyone that works in the system, and you'd realize how much they care for these kids and how much they KNOW keeping the kids with their parents is generally in their best interest.
But read into what I say if you want. You seem to be doing a lot of this...it is sad because conversations in the past have actually been civil and honest. On this thread, I can't say the same of you...
"I do not necessarily actually argue that copyright infringement should be decriminalized. I do argue that in all cases the penalties should be less than those for actual theft. It is flatly ridiculous that you can be punished more severely for uploading a single song via P2P than for actually stealing an entire CD from a retail outlet."
Why should it be? I would agree with you that uploading a single song to a single individual should be dealt with at a MUCH lower level than stealing a CD. But where do we go from there? Say that if you steal a CD and you get caught, you owe $200 fine...if you get caught uploading the same album, and a single person downloads it...no physical goods gone, so lets say that it is $20 per downloader as a fine. You can make up whatever #s you want...I'm just going to say 10% of the physical (even though physical goods have actually less value to me than digital ones). How do we figure out how many people you've given it to? We know you did, and the extent was to put it out to as many people as possible.
This is where the punishment is generally justifiably higher...you are potentially doing more damage than simply stealing a CD.
I think the hundreds of thousands of $$$ judgments are ridiculous, and the punishment should also reflect the availability of the songs already out there...but I do see that people need more than just a slap on the hand and Bad Boy Stop Doing This...
As for physicial theft, I still don't see how justifying this as not theft opens things up to 'not wrong'...there are plenty of times that a physical theft is considered morally correct for the situation, and no honest / thinking judge is going to punish one for it. Feeding your kids? If I were a judge and someone stole food for their kids, I'd dismiss the case and order child protective services to intervene -- and in the position I'm in now, I actually see CPS actually doing a positive job for EVERYONE more often than not. Quite a few situations where physical theft is morally justifiable...then again, I'm not Kantian in nature...I don't believe in absolutes.
For instance, I believe sharing songs with a few friends...one to one...is fair use. I don't believe sharing songs with people you never knew all willy nilly over the internet to be fair use. The whole Home Taping Is Killing Music line of the 80s was bullshit...but the bullshit doesn' scale to P2P.
"Another argument to be made is that the current mode of copyright is disrespectful to the people;"
The part about Life+70 is disrespectful...so we ignore the parts that are respectful? Most things where people are getting sued are for media that is within 5 years of its release. I think our founding fathers would have agreed that even 5 years is a legitimate time frame for copyright. They had what? 7 years? I could live with this...
My whole take on this is respect to the content creators...and really, I can't say which ones are more deserving than the other. It would be like saying the National Enquirer isn't legitimate news and doesn't deserve freedom of the press all the while stating the NYT is and does. That is a slippery slope, even if I have my own beliefs. As such, I don't care who creates / owns the content, I try to respect their rights...even if they are crappy pop producers...
Because they created it...want to give away your moral rights, create something on your own.
Words are free to create...it doesn't take a genius to write something brilliant...and as such, anyone that is against this moral right should be able to create their own works...
Unless of course, only a small amount of people can create these sorts of works, in which case, there is a far greater value to them in the limited supply of creative people, and as such, we should respect them and their works.
So either way...there is no need to override someone elses moral rights to their works.
Put it this way, human rights as a codified right have only been around for about one hundred years...give or take. Before that SOME humans were given rights, and others weren't...as part of law. It was only through a horrific war where people were stripped of their dignities that these were codified and put out to most of counties out there to agree upon.
Why should I believe that some brown person in a foreign country should get clean water? My people didn't get clean water when they acquired their wealth a hundred years ago...they worked to to get this. I could easily take the capitalistic asshole approach to human rights and justify it...but I don't believe that. I believe human rights include the right to control your words and expressions...I also know that other humans have the right to their words and expressions and sometimes this may involve borrowing mine. And as such, I think a middle ground is necessary...but I do believe the MORAL right of artists is that they should be able to control their unique words and expressions.
The DCMA makes anyone that supports reasonable protections look like a kook...the DCMA is pretty much the anti-EFF/Doctorow end of things...lets f*** people as hard as we can to prove an unreasonable point. I find the EFF and their supporters to be just as unreasonable (and sadly, I use to donate money to them...much the same as I use to give to greenpeace and peta)...I don't know when it became politically reasonable to take the worst position out there and adopt it. There is no middle ground.
And those that want to have a middle ground are generally demonized by both sides (i.e., I hate abortion, not going to say anything positive about it, but at the same time, I'm not a woman and don't think a congress that has less than 20% women should be making laws specifically for them...and even if it were close to even...I'm still not sure I want my gov't involved in this situation any more than I want my gov't involved with marriage...point is, as I take a middle ground on abortion, I am demonized by both ends for either being a liberal or a nazi)...
The DCMA sucks...I should be able to do what I want with my electronics...I've already hacked my iPad (Backgrounder is nice:P).
Apple generally waits a year to introduce major revisions.
However, people toward the end of the year freak the hell out after they've done no research and end up buying something that is outdated....those in the first million? We know we are buying a first gen product...I sold my 1st Gen iPhone overseas after the 3GS came out and it paid for itself. At this point, I wish I had two iPads...one for around the house duties...cookbooks and otherwise, anything that people can just pick up and put down where ever...and another one just for me...
So in a year from now, I'll probably buy the next gen..if it makes sense to (I didn't buy the iPhone 3G because it didn't offer enough of an upgrade to care...the 3GS? yes...)
"I haven't "accepted" any price. Unlike in a employer/employee contract, defining the price in a sale is a unilateral decision. I have no obligation towards them before I buy the product."
But you do have an obligation...you either come to a compromise that both sides agree to, or you walk away.
There really isn't anything more than that. If you don't agree, then you can't decide that it is still your right.
As for someone getting the $120...how do you know the $120 is going to be evenly distributed? Even within an otherwise connect series of games, they may all be loosely designed by disseparate teams that hold no financial connection with no legal connection except at the level of the distributor. In a sense, you may as well state "someone is going to get $120 to divide up...and I decide that $120 is me...and I'll divide it between checking and savings".
Several instances of theft in there...and most intellectual properties professors consider this as such as my university (I took a few grad law classes before deciding on psychology). The idea that copyrighted materials were codifed as 'intellectual properties' was done so that it could be looked upon as a property under the eyes of the law. Now, I will grant you, quite a few court cases have said their weren't...but many have said they were.
Still, regardless of the pendancy of getting bent out of shape over the word 'theft'...lets just get rid of it for the conversation and I'll let you have that point.
What part of my belief that an artist / programmer / writer / whatever has a moral right to control their works under a legally given monopoly where others agree that there is value in the work -- what part of this is negated by the fact that it isn't theft -- but something else.
It just seems like your entire argument is surrounded by the fact that I use the word theft as opposed to copyright infringement.
As for copyright? I believe it is overly broad. I think Life Of Author + 70 Years is MORONIC. I think 30 years is moronic. I believe there should be different copyrights for different types of media...though I don't know how this could be implemented...but I do believe this. Pop songs? Give them a year...when I was an artist, I got to the point I didn't give a fuck about my work and was only writing what I thought would sell (and saving the good stuff for my friends and family)...the last few songs I've written for others, I signed away all rights and got paid up front...I got paid for the work, and I was done with it. A year for this sort of crap (or at least a year after publication) is more than enough...
I have a lot of beliefs that copyright is overly broad. It needs serious reform. At the same time, the very items people are rebelling against in their quest for copyright reforms are almost ALWAYS throw away crap...they aren't arguing for the next War and Peace. They are looking for the latest Summerset Maughm or Gabriel García Márquez work...they want pop bullshit. The same shit that was INTENDED to be a consumable, and not art...maybe in a sense, if something is considered that insipid, a group of judges could get together and say This Sucks...Infinite Copyright Granted...We Hope That The Companies Lock This Down So Tight We Never Hear It Again...and yet, the people clamoring for copyright reform are the ones most likely to have piles and piles of consumable bullshit on their hard drives that was never intended to be a part of the popular culture -- because it would require some sort of culture in the first place. Great works? Give the author a lifetime stipend and say You Sit Back And Do As You Will...We Are Taking Your Works And Giving Them To The People...I would LOVE this...
Honestly, I really don't care for copyright...and I don't care about the details...I care about the artists involved. I just see too many people looking at these works as commodity products and nothing more. I don't want commodity products...I think this society needs to move beyond that crap.
And yeah, thats me sitting in an ivory tower passing judgments upon the peasants that don't know any better...
Oh drinky...you know I'm not an astroturfer...or an idiot. Over the time we've both been on here, you've tagged me as a fan and then later as a foe...and I really haven't been inconsistent with my beliefs.
I never said that this wasn't copyright infringement...but copyright infringement IS considered a form of theft (theft of services) by most law professors. And has been since before you and I have been alive. So, we can either accept the definition as it stands in the legal world or create our own realities.
As I've said, I am much more gray on the actual implementation of all of this...if I borrow something from a neighbors shed and return it before he notices, well...the police will just laugh it off (and I do just this)...however, if I borrow something and the police get there BEFORE I return it...different matter. Why? I don't know...maybe the first situation is proof that you weren't planning on stealing it, where as the second, one has to make an informed decision on your motives based upon past experience of others in a similar vein. In my neighborhood...someone would be most likely stealing it to pawn it...in yuppie neighborhoods, just an extended loan...
I find the whole copyright infringement thing absurd...no one wants to take a middle ground...either ITS MINE AND YOU CAN'T DO NO NOTHING WITH IT...or HEY MAN, IT SHOULD BE FREE SO I'M LIKE TAKIN' IT. I look at copyright infringement and think...do I want to put up with the bullshit when there is so much other awesome stuff out there? And sometimes I say yes, and sometimes say no...but I always assume there is value in others works and I'm not going to demean them by saying that it should be any less than they believe it should be. That's about respect for the person, not about any law...
(and most of the software I created when I was a developer has been turned over to the public domain...I know at least one commercial soft developed with my code, and I know one GPL'd project that is currently dead because the developers kept pestering me when I said I DO NO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE IN ANY WAYS WITH THIS CODE...and ended up calling me a nazi on a list serve for giving it away for free!)
It doesn't. They choose to value something at one price...you decided to value it at another. This isn't a negotiation...you agree there is value, and if there is an implied value, then the persons involved in trading said values have the right to make their bargaining points.
You can simply say "I Won't Buy It Unless It Is $10" and the game developer says "The Price Is $60". Again -- there is an accepted and agreed upon value to the product...but you can't decide what it is -- and as such, you have to decide if you walk away from the deal or not.
I but a LOT of $10 games (or at least I use to! going back to school has killed what little free time I have)...I bought them in the bargain bins...a year out? Ok, I don't have what all my friends have (or I do, but a year late)...but it got to the point where our agreed upon values were in sync and we could ok the deal.
The ethical thing is to accept the value the other party puts in it, and either negotiate (which you can't really do with these things) or walk away. Simple as that.
This would be like realizing someone is jobless and wouldn't be working anyways and asking him to work a week on a project, but at the end, you tell him you think his work was only worth 2 days. I mean, he is getting paid the exact amount as if he only worked 2 days and he isn't out anything because he got valuable experience on the other 5 and you even threw in free lunches that he wouldn't have had...so he isn't out anything and might have learned a new work ethic. Sadly, you can't negotiate after the fact...the accepted price is the accepted price. DOn't like it, walk away...
You are right...at my university, in-state students (students that have paid taxes for X amount of years, or have had parents that have) pay about $250 a credit hour -- which is right about the cost of your classes. Out-of-state students, pay about $800...about 3x that of in-state.
Why? My local gov't is subsidizing the cost of this.
And you have to pay a lot of extra for services that make the school run correctly. All of our cleaning staff are unionized. A lot of them make as much as I do with grad degrees in psychology. I don't teach (that often...occasionally)...and when I do, I'm paid about $4k a class for a semester. Not much. But for what I do for the university? I do student testing to ensure that students are both intellectually and mentally mature enough to take specific classes (and to find the most appropriate class for them in case they think they need to be at another level...and explain why I think they should be in another...or have them convince me otherwise...a lot of times, I have to agree with the student...but I'm one more sounding board for them to figure out their path).
In my office, I have 9 people...and 2 dozen student employees (whom we pay to work, knowing they might be giving the best job...but because studies show that students engaged in the process are more likely to graduate and find value in what they are doing). I don't even want to know what the yearly budget for my office is (and I stay out of this process...it helps with my unreasonable demands when I can be ignorant about the costs associated with providing the best service for students)...so for every instructor, you have 5 or 6 more people ensuring that the students find as much success as possible.
Could this be cut back? I'm certain it could...we've cut a lot of extras out in our services and budget. I'd say to the point of being detrimental to the learning process...
Back to the $40k per class estimate...most classes at my university are under 30 students...probably about 20 on average school wide (freshman courses don't count...those are MOSTLY lecture...but I'll still include them for the avg). Lets put it at about $20k a class...minus the $4k that the prof makes...thats $16k...and then the facility charges...assuming the facility wasn't available and we had to make one available (and this is happening right now...for instance, my building is being demolished in a few months and the university is going to have to rent space because we have nothing on campus)...you can add about $4k for the rental of the class room for the semester per class at fair market value (along with all the tech associated)...that's $12k now. And then we split all of this up to the 5 or 6 people that work in subservient roles to the prof...the people that actually make the university run...and you quickly realize why all of this costs money.
I still think things could be streamlined, but everyone thinks their office is too important and it should be someone elses that is cut. And they may be right...most people in academia could be making a LOT more money elsewhere...but they choose to do this because they love what they do. Me? I just made $10k off a 2 week project that I did in my spare time...I made a lot more than this when I was in entertainment...and worked far far far less than I do today. And it was irrelevant to anything, only to be forgotten a few months later. I've made a lot more doing software development...I can't stand this field, but I am better than most of my peers who have no clue how to program for humans. But I choose to go into this field to help students as I got very little support and very little encouragement as a kid. And sometimes, it kicks me in the ass when I look at my checking account, but I realize that I'm doing the right thing...
Very few people are making money in this industry...I wish I could, but then again, I've passed up raises in order to keep grad assistants on board...so even then, it is far from the motivating factor.
"and say that I pirate games I don't want to pay for because generally too expensive to purchase."
And that doesn't make you feel dirty at all?
You admit that these have value to you, but not the value that you want, so you take it...this is a fundamental difference between the folks that believe copyright shouldn't exist...they really don't see stored value in intellectual properties at all...but by your admission, you do see the value.
This means you are taking someones money because you find it too expensive.
Seriously, are games THAT IMPORTANT that you need to do this? It is of life altering need that one has to do this?
I'm not going to be a complete hypocrite and say I don't do this...I do...but I only do this for things that have no demos available. And I give it one day and it is off the system or it is bought. I gotta say, I've bought a LOT of shitty games because I broke my rule and forgot to pull it off within 24 hours...apparently, the game had enough value for me to keep it, so I pay the price. Kinda like a strip club, where you know the dance isn't worth it, but you keep the credit card running and realize you just dropped a few hundred (ok...the last time I was at one of these places 5 years ago, it was $350...I have friends with much higher scores!)
So I'm not saying I've never done this, and I believe that DRM and the industry do go out of their way to thwart honest customers (i.e., when I was a software programmer, I had pretty much the library book approach...you could lend the software to a friend, but you had to lend the media and everything...and not run a backup yourself...this was when you could run software straight from the media...and I included instructions on how to back things up...developers use to treat people differently...then again...users use to treat developers with a little respect).
Soooo....if something costs too much...ignore it. I certainly wouldn't try out a $1000 package knowing I couldn't afford it...I would simply find something completely different...and more often, it was better (even if it had a smaller userbase).
"In this case, I benefited from other people's attendance."
In most cases, classes benefit through peer interaction / learning. In the cases I've seen, having a peer group that in involved will increase your knowledge about one letter grade over those that don't participate.
I've been involved as both a student and an educator, and as a student, it was annoying that I was required to show up to class. It was only in grad school that I realized the value of attendance (that and I studied experiential learning as one of my main focuses). I decided to get away from my graduate degree and go for something completely different requiring ANOTHER undergrad degree, and it is funny...but just showing up to every damn class...I get almost all As...nothing different from my previous study methods.
Beyond this, when I do instruct, I don't want students in my class if they are not going to participate. I don't want to waste 15 minutes to get class started and take attendance. Students are more than welcome to find another section if they don't like the rules...and my students -- on a common final -- generally do far better than the other sections taking the class.
The students may be paying for SOME of the class, but the majority of their tuition comes from elsewhere. I have to deal with instructor evaluations and otherwise...I am evaluated and my position is ranked based on grades and withdraw rates -- we call them the DFW rates -- Ds Fs and Withdraws (and I am not penalized for students dropping in the first two weeks...so there is plenty of time for them to find something else if they don't like my policy).
Students are adults, but they are paying us to teach them. If they don't want to take our teaching methods, they can go elsewhere. The teaching methods are designed to be the most scientific method of teaching possible with evidence that it works. Problem is, if educators don't care, and don't do anything other than heard the students into a room and do the same boring things they always did...the students won't benefit from this.
BTW -- I took an undergrad course this spring (final was just last Thursday) and we were required to carry wifi response cards for in-class quizzes and polls. We got full participation points for the polls and 50% of the quiz just for showing up. There were enough points built in that one could miss about a quarter of the classes and STILL get full participation points (beyond that, extra credit if you were on the edge and the prof wanted to bump you). As a student, I felt cheated when I saw a few students never showing up and having a buddy press random buttons on the dozen cards they brought in...actually, I shouldn't care because they helped lower the curve for me...but still...reminded me of my first go around with college and made me realize how much of a slackass I was (which pissed me off more!)
This is where you are wrong...well other than the part about me being stupid...that's pretty much right...
But regardless of how stupid you are, unless you have a physical mental disability, you have an ability to learn almost anything. If you are motivated.
I specifically took a non-calculus physics class -- it is a little slower, but the math is easier -- because I wanted to learn a bit more of the hard sciences before I started a PhD as I realized I was focusing on the soft side a little too much. And in my field, no one is going to stop you from doing so and I needed a kick in the ass.
I have to say, after two semesters...my math skills from just having to figure out how shit works? I'm learning more now than when I slept through my classes 20 years ago and BARELY passed (I looked through my old transcripts when I applied to grad school a few years ago, and I was shocked at how bad these scores were! I knew they were bad, but I didn't remember this bad!!!) But little things that make a LOT of difference...I can throw equations into a calc and get the answer, or flip things around to get an algebraic equation that I could solve with a bit of programming...and this is an art to know how to find the answer in a manner that wasn't taught 20 years ago (and still isn't in a math course).
But LITTLE things that I pick up -- for instance, everyone I know that took a math course looks at me like I'm an idiot, but I never realized until about 3 months ago that X^-4 was the same as 1/(X^4) -- but while doing an equation I noticed this and ended up doing several other equations to verify my find before googling it and realizing a negative exponent simply means to find the inverse of a number. I don't remember this EVER being something in a class I had taken...it might have been, but I was probably out drunk that day.
The point is, yes, I am stupid...have been stupid, and will be stupid, but isn't something that will stop me from learning. Hell, nature abhors a vacuum and this applies to intelligence as well...we are programed much like nature to fill every space we can...sometimes it is from random trivia if we have no other purpose, sometimes it is math -- if we realize that it is beneficial to know this...
Oh yeah, and art? There is NO art that you either have or don't have. My background in psychology is quantifying creative aspects. All art is, is specific craft in one area (i.e., in painting it is knowing how mix colors and move your hands...in song writing, it is the knowledge of chord progressions along with how to rhyme words in specific meters) which is a learned and trainable activity -- mixed with broad intelligence. Broad intelligence is that outside of a single field...how do you tie multiple areas together to get something new and novel. It is why I took Physics to learn to be a better psychologist than taking more of the same in psychology (which I will have to do regardless)...and it has already taught me to look at certain problems in a different light.
People that say that they were born artistic were most certainly not. They may not understand all the inputs they have had over the years, or may choose to pretend it is not important. But most certainly, they were not artistic all by themselves...they learned a craft and then they learned creativity (maybe not in that order)...
I *HATE* math, but I use it every single day, and in the areas I'm known for, I can do the math needed...mostly in my head. I've also found that as I've tried to branch out of my areas of expertise, that I can't rely on the few areas of math that I know fluently, because I'm starting to bang my head against the ceiling.
For instance, I took a few basic undergrad courses recently (I have a masters in psychology), and I couldn't remember the damn quadratic equation...I could get the answer just fine -- if I wanted to spend 15 minutes solving it (or as I did, write a quick plot app on my laptop to show the answers figuring it out computationally as opposed to mathematically)...and it was only after one of my twenty-something classmates looked at me and said Dude, Why Don't You Just Use The Quadratic Equation that I realized how much I had forgotten (I had no use for math 20 years ago and slept through this).
It is funny how knowing the simple concepts can make your life simple. Anyone can brute force just about anything.
If you don't want to do anything science based...and this includes almost any social science even if people think these are not real...or any advanced art (I have a friend that does weavings, and to get what she wants, and for the patterns to work out in real life, not just paper, she needs to know math to get these to work)...math is the basis for all of this. Oh and the chess algs? it is all math...pretty advanced math...it isn't chess these guys were after...it was computational mathmatics to attack a human problem.
This summer, I am signing up for a 100 level math course and getting the basics back again...I wish I would have done it before...it sucks that I can get results from Mathematica or SPSS, but I can't do simple algebraic equations. You might not think it interesting or necessary, but then again, I can't tell if you are being serious or if your humor is just VERY dry...if you are serious...wow...
I've met several folks from Behringer over the years, and talked with them about their manufacturing processes and otherwise. It is amazing the stories you hear from people in competition to them, only to work for them later...if the truth was there in the first place, why did they go to the company?
The fact is, most of the complaints are unfounded...they automated the process that most companies had to have hired skilled workers to assemble and match. This pisses off a LOT of people in the audio world that assume that because the way it was always done should be the way it is done in the future. In fact, their process makes the QA a little better. Will products still break? Sure...but far less that anything else similarly priced. Equal to that much higher.
I know of a few companies that have investigated their processes to automate their lines the same way...the tide is turning toward how Behringer does things...but you still get the reputation based on an industry of complaints. (BTW, my Tascam digital mixer did the same thing...had it repaired and its now doing the same thing...luckily, I have a new alesis interface so I don't have to worry bout it right now...even if it means I have a few less channels right now)...
Ottercase. I take my phone with me while I'm climbing as well...took a serious whipper and banged the side of the wall. Leg was bruised up except for the rectangle of where the phone was in my pocket.
Sadly, the phone was alright and I ended up having to buy my 3GS on my own a few weeks later...
I have a superpowerful desktop that I can use if I need to...honestly, except when I'm needing to process 100 tracks of audio at once or need a compiling station for the few times a decade I actually get back to programming, I rarely turn it on (and even with my music, my laptop or macmini that is ultraquiet and fits in my rack case in a smaller slot than any of my outboard gear is powerful enough).
I have an iPhone for 99% of the rest of what I do these days...I felt constricted to my office otherwise until I picked this up. I've been a gadget junkie for most of my 4 decades on this earth and the last device that was as compact as my iPhone that was useful to me? My Newton...had to invest in cargo pants to have this with me (had palm and a sony branded palm before those...or was it after...I forget).
I can get to my servers anywhere with my phone...can do just about anything. And yeah, I can do that on my friends Droids or Win phones, but never quite as easily or quickly...the OS just gets the hell out of the way with this device which should be the goal of ANY device so that you can focus on the task at hand.
My only complaint with the iPhone is that the screen is too small. I still find myself using it more often even at home or the office than I do my computers sitting around (and in some ways, I use to do that with my other gadgets...its faster to pull up email on a device where it is always running...I thought of buying one of those Peek emailer devices for the same reason (and they are pretty cool, but when I tried one, was slow for what I needed...didn't speed up my life and one more gadget).
So yes, an overgrown PDA might be EXACTLY what is needed. I played with the Dell Tablet, but it felt like using a PC with a stylus. I generally like Dell products if I go the PC route (at least the business class ones...other than the one I'm installing today has no fricken XP drivers and I'm having to scour the net to get the appropriate install!!!) and I thought it would be great. Honestly, it felt more cumbersome using than simply having laptop with a wacom on it. Why aren't tablet PCs going anywhere? Because they think they are PCs (I saw one recently that once you unplugged the keys and otherwise, it pulled up a custom tablet environment that was simplified to this world...might have to see if I can get a loaner sometime to check it out!).
So current tablets don't work because they try to be too much. PDAs are perfect because they don't. Geeks don't get that...limiting what you can do will help you focus on your job, not focus on technology. If your job IS technology...well, then this is the wrong device for you. If you job is making certain you get your life together? A more limited device with the appropriate apps might just be the thing...My only concern right now is I don't want to carry two deviced (i.e., if the pad could be a phone too, it would be an instant choice...except for the times my headphones run out of juice, but then again, I also find it just as akward to hold the iphone as well and just throw it on speaker 90% of the time!)
"Allowing heirs to sit on this "property" indefinitely does not surve this purpose."
Why not? I have a friend that died a few years ago, and one of the last things he did was to finish a large work who's real purpose wasn't to cement his status in history but because the work was so well noted that while he was actively dying, he was able to negotiate a MUCH better contract so his children could be properly taken care of.
I know he would have rather spent more time with his kids than working, but their long term wellbeing was much more important to him. Disagree with what might have been more important for his kids or not, but the fact that the law sided with him was the entire reason he wrote the last work. And as such, it most certainly served the purposes as intended.
No, my people are dwindling to nothing...the boss is REALLY trying to get me back into the IT role, but wants me to keep the rest as well...kinda sucks.
One of the most educated people, but dealing with folks that think of me as the nerd because they can't imagine someone being great at more than one thing at a time...
I use to program, and technically, I have people that report to me that program -- but most of the time, I wave my hand and tell them do what they do just get it done (and give vague timelines where I don't have to think about it).
These days, I quit and went into psychology where I don't have to think nerdy thoughts...but the telling thing was, one of the grad electives was something in industrial organization and taught by one of the HR assholes that use to make my life hell in my old life. Funny thing was, even this person noted that it is very hard to motivate someone to work more than 60% of their efficiency for more than a short amount of time. Sure, crunch time comes in, and you can get people to do it...but push too long and you get a much lower output. Expect to have folks work abut 60% of the time and they are the most effective.
I forget the lit behind it (I was working more towards clinical psych, but it was interesting to see the other end), but it was pretty persuasive. I know when I was programming...I did the same amount of work if I came in 20 hours in one week and got things done vs. worked 40 hours and stuck behind the desk. Unfortunately, the idiots that were pretty much place keepers and needed to do things like ANSWER THE PHONE didn't like this, so my arrangements of WE PAY YOU TO GET THE JOB DONE NOT BY THE HOUR didn't work very long (its funny how this flexible time arrangement works if you have to be around 90 hours a week but doesn't when you are only there 20).
Me? I encourage downtime with my staff. They get their job done and thats all I care...if they can't, they leave. This rarely happens.
Slashdot Mirror
"I was an extreme introvert...I'm meeting plenty of random people all the time"
Wait? How does this disprove or prove your introversion and or change to extroversion?
People think not being around others is introversion...and it isn't. It is where do you get your energy from. An extrovert will find energy by being around people in ANY activity...not just ones that are hand chosen. An introvert generally has to be in their comfort zone before they can deal with others...they are able to gain more energy from their comfort zone that they may now expend on being around others.
I am a HUGE introvert...and I was a stage performing / touring musician for years. Being an introvert, it make aquiring people skills a little harder, but I made them...and when I did I was able to seem very outgoing under certain circumstances.
BTW -- the sports you list? Very introvert friendly...they are all about being able to focus on you internally, and less about the external.
That said, personality generally is set early on...but people can make a concerted effort (or even a situational one) and change with time. If you were in one of my grad courses, my profs would have used you as an example of not knowing what introversion and extroversion are...then again, unless you are in the field, I wouldn't expect someone to require in depth knowledge (and yeah, the standard def is pretty accurate for 90% of what people use it for).
"if people CAN cheat at a test, there's something wrong with the testing method. change your test, don't punish people for outsmarting the education system!"
I have grad degrees in psychology and my main focus of studies are in experiential learning and assessment of said learning.
And from a certain realistic stand point, you are right. We can't catch all the cheaters, and testing methods need to make it more fair, meaning that we need to balance things out.
That said, who the fuck has the knowledge to create system like this? I can safely say, I'm considered expendable by my university because I'm too expensive for the little work I can do. Should every instructor also be forced to take 4 years of graduate psych in order to learn how to get into students heads and figure out how to ask appropriate questions? Right now, it is near dead impossible to get teachers to ask very probing questions in the first place...but we also know that if students don't cheat -- we have a pretty good idea of what they know even with the lack of appropriateness in the testing procedures / rubric.
It is nice to claim their is a problem with the testing method, but who is going to pay for the fix? Students already complain that their schooling is costing more and more -- and a good portion of this comes from the fact that we have to go out of our ways to make things fair for those that can't follow the rules. We have to expend good monies on people because of politically correctness (some because idiot students require too much of it, some of it because idiot administrators seem to think that being forced not to be overtly biased against anyone that doesn't think like they do should be able to do so). So now you expect more. And I'm certain if you were asked if you wanted an increase in the cost of your school, you'd say no. Last year at my school, the faculty actually put out a ballot item about increasing the budget -- and said why it needed to be done, and everyone (97%) voted against it...and the same people complained that those services the budget was needed to be increased for complained that they didn't get any of this.
I grew up in the south for much of my childhood. I didn't touch tea again until my 20s because I was convinced it all tasted like sugary pop as one of the posters mentioned. Ended up having nothing to drink but iced tea on a hot day at college, tried it...and it tasted pretty good.
As for bad strong tea, I think this sentiment could be added to any food...I like banana cream pie, but if it is bad, tasting especially strong isn't going to make it any better...it might make me even never want to touch banana cream pie again!
Sugar in tea? Seriously? That ruins it. That said, I grab about 3 or 4 green iced teas from SB's every day...no added water, no syrup (they make it strong so they can store it smaller containers, and dilute it when fixing the drink).
So drink it strong...and it won't taste like water.
Of course it was a scam, Microsoft screwed more people out of money than anyone will ever know and any time someone complains on their forums too much, the message disappears. Or they claim the payment was paid and the comment is closed...and then the user is banned where they can't complain any more.
I've had a dozen purchases canceled.
I made certain to check prices with and without Bing. A lot of times, if you used Bing, the price was jacked up...if you looked at the price elsewhere with a second browser you'd get a better deal dollar to dollar. If you counted the cash back, it was still not that much better, but I'm all for delayed gratification even if it is only $5.
Sadly, more often than not, Microsoft would send notes saying that the purchase was not made correctly and the cash back would be canceled. They claimed a few times that the product was not really a cashback item...even when there was a banner advertisement FROM THE RETAILER on the side with the specific reward. Or they will say that the purchase never went through. OR just not respond at all.
Every time you'd go through proper channels, and they'd request information -- screenshots or otherwise -- it was always someone with a script. If you managed to get something escalated, the support person would ask for the same information the next time you asked, and if you said you sent it, they'd say that apparently the issue was closed since you didn't send it. or throw out a THE RETAILER DETERMINED IT WAS A 37B ISSUE (or something like that, of which the issue had NOTHING to do with the terms of service quoted).
I tried using this service, and for 2 months it looked like I was getting about $300 back...and I lost all but $20 of this about 60 days after the purchases. Long enough to keep using the system thinking I was getting something and ended up getting scammed...
Microsoft scammed too many people with this Bing...they knew their retailers were abusing this and went along with it to get users. I will never use their service regardless of how good it may every be. On some things it was better than google, but you couldn't pay me at this point to touch their shit...it just made me realize how bad I hated Microsoft in the past and realized they haven't changed...
"You'd take away their children, and you don't think that's punishment? You're human scum. I'm done talking to you."
You seem to read a lot into what I say, that I didn't say at all.
CPS for the most part ensures that children stay WITH their parents, and gives their parents a lot more safety nets.
Ignore the cases you hear in the newspapers -- the majority of which that actually show how unfit someone is to parent -- in my field of work I see the opposite...these organizations make sure kids have every opportunity and that the parents get the help they need. Very little about it is taking kids away except as a last resort.
But if you want to stay uninformed, and get the Faux News abridged versions of what happens in these cases...go ahead. Talk to anyone that works in the system, and you'd realize how much they care for these kids and how much they KNOW keeping the kids with their parents is generally in their best interest.
But read into what I say if you want. You seem to be doing a lot of this...it is sad because conversations in the past have actually been civil and honest. On this thread, I can't say the same of you...
"I do not necessarily actually argue that copyright infringement should be decriminalized. I do argue that in all cases the penalties should be less than those for actual theft. It is flatly ridiculous that you can be punished more severely for uploading a single song via P2P than for actually stealing an entire CD from a retail outlet."
Why should it be? I would agree with you that uploading a single song to a single individual should be dealt with at a MUCH lower level than stealing a CD. But where do we go from there? Say that if you steal a CD and you get caught, you owe $200 fine...if you get caught uploading the same album, and a single person downloads it...no physical goods gone, so lets say that it is $20 per downloader as a fine. You can make up whatever #s you want...I'm just going to say 10% of the physical (even though physical goods have actually less value to me than digital ones). How do we figure out how many people you've given it to? We know you did, and the extent was to put it out to as many people as possible.
This is where the punishment is generally justifiably higher...you are potentially doing more damage than simply stealing a CD.
I think the hundreds of thousands of $$$ judgments are ridiculous, and the punishment should also reflect the availability of the songs already out there...but I do see that people need more than just a slap on the hand and Bad Boy Stop Doing This...
As for physicial theft, I still don't see how justifying this as not theft opens things up to 'not wrong'...there are plenty of times that a physical theft is considered morally correct for the situation, and no honest / thinking judge is going to punish one for it. Feeding your kids? If I were a judge and someone stole food for their kids, I'd dismiss the case and order child protective services to intervene -- and in the position I'm in now, I actually see CPS actually doing a positive job for EVERYONE more often than not. Quite a few situations where physical theft is morally justifiable...then again, I'm not Kantian in nature...I don't believe in absolutes.
For instance, I believe sharing songs with a few friends...one to one...is fair use. I don't believe sharing songs with people you never knew all willy nilly over the internet to be fair use. The whole Home Taping Is Killing Music line of the 80s was bullshit...but the bullshit doesn' scale to P2P.
"Another argument to be made is that the current mode of copyright is disrespectful to the people;"
The part about Life+70 is disrespectful...so we ignore the parts that are respectful? Most things where people are getting sued are for media that is within 5 years of its release. I think our founding fathers would have agreed that even 5 years is a legitimate time frame for copyright. They had what? 7 years? I could live with this...
My whole take on this is respect to the content creators...and really, I can't say which ones are more deserving than the other. It would be like saying the National Enquirer isn't legitimate news and doesn't deserve freedom of the press all the while stating the NYT is and does. That is a slippery slope, even if I have my own beliefs. As such, I don't care who creates / owns the content, I try to respect their rights...even if they are crappy pop producers...
Because they created it...want to give away your moral rights, create something on your own.
Words are free to create...it doesn't take a genius to write something brilliant...and as such, anyone that is against this moral right should be able to create their own works...
Unless of course, only a small amount of people can create these sorts of works, in which case, there is a far greater value to them in the limited supply of creative people, and as such, we should respect them and their works.
So either way...there is no need to override someone elses moral rights to their works.
Put it this way, human rights as a codified right have only been around for about one hundred years...give or take. Before that SOME humans were given rights, and others weren't...as part of law. It was only through a horrific war where people were stripped of their dignities that these were codified and put out to most of counties out there to agree upon.
Why should I believe that some brown person in a foreign country should get clean water? My people didn't get clean water when they acquired their wealth a hundred years ago...they worked to to get this. I could easily take the capitalistic asshole approach to human rights and justify it...but I don't believe that. I believe human rights include the right to control your words and expressions...I also know that other humans have the right to their words and expressions and sometimes this may involve borrowing mine. And as such, I think a middle ground is necessary...but I do believe the MORAL right of artists is that they should be able to control their unique words and expressions.
The DCMA makes anyone that supports reasonable protections look like a kook...the DCMA is pretty much the anti-EFF/Doctorow end of things...lets f*** people as hard as we can to prove an unreasonable point. I find the EFF and their supporters to be just as unreasonable (and sadly, I use to donate money to them...much the same as I use to give to greenpeace and peta)...I don't know when it became politically reasonable to take the worst position out there and adopt it. There is no middle ground.
And those that want to have a middle ground are generally demonized by both sides (i.e., I hate abortion, not going to say anything positive about it, but at the same time, I'm not a woman and don't think a congress that has less than 20% women should be making laws specifically for them...and even if it were close to even...I'm still not sure I want my gov't involved in this situation any more than I want my gov't involved with marriage...point is, as I take a middle ground on abortion, I am demonized by both ends for either being a liberal or a nazi)...
The DCMA sucks...I should be able to do what I want with my electronics...I've already hacked my iPad (Backgrounder is nice :P).
Apple generally waits a year to introduce major revisions.
However, people toward the end of the year freak the hell out after they've done no research and end up buying something that is outdated....those in the first million? We know we are buying a first gen product...I sold my 1st Gen iPhone overseas after the 3GS came out and it paid for itself. At this point, I wish I had two iPads...one for around the house duties...cookbooks and otherwise, anything that people can just pick up and put down where ever...and another one just for me...
So in a year from now, I'll probably buy the next gen..if it makes sense to (I didn't buy the iPhone 3G because it didn't offer enough of an upgrade to care...the 3GS? yes...)
"I haven't "accepted" any price. Unlike in a employer/employee contract, defining the price in a sale is a unilateral decision. I have no obligation towards them before I buy the product."
But you do have an obligation...you either come to a compromise that both sides agree to, or you walk away.
There really isn't anything more than that. If you don't agree, then you can't decide that it is still your right.
As for someone getting the $120...how do you know the $120 is going to be evenly distributed? Even within an otherwise connect series of games, they may all be loosely designed by disseparate teams that hold no financial connection with no legal connection except at the level of the distributor. In a sense, you may as well state "someone is going to get $120 to divide up...and I decide that $120 is me...and I'll divide it between checking and savings".
Then why does the law actually call it theft in many of its passages:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#507
Several instances of theft in there...and most intellectual properties professors consider this as such as my university (I took a few grad law classes before deciding on psychology). The idea that copyrighted materials were codifed as 'intellectual properties' was done so that it could be looked upon as a property under the eyes of the law. Now, I will grant you, quite a few court cases have said their weren't...but many have said they were.
Still, regardless of the pendancy of getting bent out of shape over the word 'theft'...lets just get rid of it for the conversation and I'll let you have that point.
What part of my belief that an artist / programmer / writer / whatever has a moral right to control their works under a legally given monopoly where others agree that there is value in the work -- what part of this is negated by the fact that it isn't theft -- but something else.
It just seems like your entire argument is surrounded by the fact that I use the word theft as opposed to copyright infringement.
As for copyright? I believe it is overly broad. I think Life Of Author + 70 Years is MORONIC. I think 30 years is moronic. I believe there should be different copyrights for different types of media...though I don't know how this could be implemented...but I do believe this. Pop songs? Give them a year...when I was an artist, I got to the point I didn't give a fuck about my work and was only writing what I thought would sell (and saving the good stuff for my friends and family)...the last few songs I've written for others, I signed away all rights and got paid up front...I got paid for the work, and I was done with it. A year for this sort of crap (or at least a year after publication) is more than enough...
I have a lot of beliefs that copyright is overly broad. It needs serious reform. At the same time, the very items people are rebelling against in their quest for copyright reforms are almost ALWAYS throw away crap...they aren't arguing for the next War and Peace. They are looking for the latest Summerset Maughm or Gabriel García Márquez work...they want pop bullshit. The same shit that was INTENDED to be a consumable, and not art...maybe in a sense, if something is considered that insipid, a group of judges could get together and say This Sucks...Infinite Copyright Granted...We Hope That The Companies Lock This Down So Tight We Never Hear It Again...and yet, the people clamoring for copyright reform are the ones most likely to have piles and piles of consumable bullshit on their hard drives that was never intended to be a part of the popular culture -- because it would require some sort of culture in the first place. Great works? Give the author a lifetime stipend and say You Sit Back And Do As You Will...We Are Taking Your Works And Giving Them To The People...I would LOVE this...
Honestly, I really don't care for copyright...and I don't care about the details...I care about the artists involved. I just see too many people looking at these works as commodity products and nothing more. I don't want commodity products...I think this society needs to move beyond that crap.
And yeah, thats me sitting in an ivory tower passing judgments upon the peasants that don't know any better...
Oh drinky...you know I'm not an astroturfer...or an idiot. Over the time we've both been on here, you've tagged me as a fan and then later as a foe...and I really haven't been inconsistent with my beliefs.
I never said that this wasn't copyright infringement...but copyright infringement IS considered a form of theft (theft of services) by most law professors. And has been since before you and I have been alive. So, we can either accept the definition as it stands in the legal world or create our own realities.
As I've said, I am much more gray on the actual implementation of all of this...if I borrow something from a neighbors shed and return it before he notices, well...the police will just laugh it off (and I do just this)...however, if I borrow something and the police get there BEFORE I return it...different matter. Why? I don't know...maybe the first situation is proof that you weren't planning on stealing it, where as the second, one has to make an informed decision on your motives based upon past experience of others in a similar vein. In my neighborhood...someone would be most likely stealing it to pawn it...in yuppie neighborhoods, just an extended loan...
I find the whole copyright infringement thing absurd...no one wants to take a middle ground...either ITS MINE AND YOU CAN'T DO NO NOTHING WITH IT...or HEY MAN, IT SHOULD BE FREE SO I'M LIKE TAKIN' IT. I look at copyright infringement and think...do I want to put up with the bullshit when there is so much other awesome stuff out there? And sometimes I say yes, and sometimes say no...but I always assume there is value in others works and I'm not going to demean them by saying that it should be any less than they believe it should be. That's about respect for the person, not about any law...
(and most of the software I created when I was a developer has been turned over to the public domain...I know at least one commercial soft developed with my code, and I know one GPL'd project that is currently dead because the developers kept pestering me when I said I DO NO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE IN ANY WAYS WITH THIS CODE...and ended up calling me a nazi on a list serve for giving it away for free!)
It doesn't. They choose to value something at one price...you decided to value it at another. This isn't a negotiation...you agree there is value, and if there is an implied value, then the persons involved in trading said values have the right to make their bargaining points.
You can simply say "I Won't Buy It Unless It Is $10" and the game developer says "The Price Is $60". Again -- there is an accepted and agreed upon value to the product...but you can't decide what it is -- and as such, you have to decide if you walk away from the deal or not.
I but a LOT of $10 games (or at least I use to! going back to school has killed what little free time I have)...I bought them in the bargain bins...a year out? Ok, I don't have what all my friends have (or I do, but a year late)...but it got to the point where our agreed upon values were in sync and we could ok the deal.
The ethical thing is to accept the value the other party puts in it, and either negotiate (which you can't really do with these things) or walk away. Simple as that.
This would be like realizing someone is jobless and wouldn't be working anyways and asking him to work a week on a project, but at the end, you tell him you think his work was only worth 2 days. I mean, he is getting paid the exact amount as if he only worked 2 days and he isn't out anything because he got valuable experience on the other 5 and you even threw in free lunches that he wouldn't have had...so he isn't out anything and might have learned a new work ethic. Sadly, you can't negotiate after the fact...the accepted price is the accepted price. DOn't like it, walk away...
You are right...at my university, in-state students (students that have paid taxes for X amount of years, or have had parents that have) pay about $250 a credit hour -- which is right about the cost of your classes. Out-of-state students, pay about $800...about 3x that of in-state.
Why? My local gov't is subsidizing the cost of this.
And you have to pay a lot of extra for services that make the school run correctly. All of our cleaning staff are unionized. A lot of them make as much as I do with grad degrees in psychology. I don't teach (that often...occasionally)...and when I do, I'm paid about $4k a class for a semester. Not much. But for what I do for the university? I do student testing to ensure that students are both intellectually and mentally mature enough to take specific classes (and to find the most appropriate class for them in case they think they need to be at another level...and explain why I think they should be in another...or have them convince me otherwise...a lot of times, I have to agree with the student...but I'm one more sounding board for them to figure out their path).
In my office, I have 9 people...and 2 dozen student employees (whom we pay to work, knowing they might be giving the best job...but because studies show that students engaged in the process are more likely to graduate and find value in what they are doing). I don't even want to know what the yearly budget for my office is (and I stay out of this process...it helps with my unreasonable demands when I can be ignorant about the costs associated with providing the best service for students)...so for every instructor, you have 5 or 6 more people ensuring that the students find as much success as possible.
Could this be cut back? I'm certain it could...we've cut a lot of extras out in our services and budget. I'd say to the point of being detrimental to the learning process...
Back to the $40k per class estimate...most classes at my university are under 30 students...probably about 20 on average school wide (freshman courses don't count...those are MOSTLY lecture...but I'll still include them for the avg). Lets put it at about $20k a class...minus the $4k that the prof makes...thats $16k...and then the facility charges...assuming the facility wasn't available and we had to make one available (and this is happening right now...for instance, my building is being demolished in a few months and the university is going to have to rent space because we have nothing on campus)...you can add about $4k for the rental of the class room for the semester per class at fair market value (along with all the tech associated)...that's $12k now. And then we split all of this up to the 5 or 6 people that work in subservient roles to the prof...the people that actually make the university run...and you quickly realize why all of this costs money.
I still think things could be streamlined, but everyone thinks their office is too important and it should be someone elses that is cut. And they may be right...most people in academia could be making a LOT more money elsewhere...but they choose to do this because they love what they do. Me? I just made $10k off a 2 week project that I did in my spare time...I made a lot more than this when I was in entertainment...and worked far far far less than I do today. And it was irrelevant to anything, only to be forgotten a few months later. I've made a lot more doing software development...I can't stand this field, but I am better than most of my peers who have no clue how to program for humans. But I choose to go into this field to help students as I got very little support and very little encouragement as a kid. And sometimes, it kicks me in the ass when I look at my checking account, but I realize that I'm doing the right thing...
Very few people are making money in this industry...I wish I could, but then again, I've passed up raises in order to keep grad assistants on board...so even then, it is far from the motivating factor.
"and say that I pirate games I don't want to pay for because generally too expensive to purchase."
And that doesn't make you feel dirty at all?
You admit that these have value to you, but not the value that you want, so you take it...this is a fundamental difference between the folks that believe copyright shouldn't exist...they really don't see stored value in intellectual properties at all...but by your admission, you do see the value.
This means you are taking someones money because you find it too expensive.
Seriously, are games THAT IMPORTANT that you need to do this? It is of life altering need that one has to do this?
I'm not going to be a complete hypocrite and say I don't do this...I do...but I only do this for things that have no demos available. And I give it one day and it is off the system or it is bought. I gotta say, I've bought a LOT of shitty games because I broke my rule and forgot to pull it off within 24 hours...apparently, the game had enough value for me to keep it, so I pay the price. Kinda like a strip club, where you know the dance isn't worth it, but you keep the credit card running and realize you just dropped a few hundred (ok...the last time I was at one of these places 5 years ago, it was $350...I have friends with much higher scores!)
So I'm not saying I've never done this, and I believe that DRM and the industry do go out of their way to thwart honest customers (i.e., when I was a software programmer, I had pretty much the library book approach...you could lend the software to a friend, but you had to lend the media and everything...and not run a backup yourself...this was when you could run software straight from the media...and I included instructions on how to back things up...developers use to treat people differently...then again...users use to treat developers with a little respect).
Soooo....if something costs too much...ignore it. I certainly wouldn't try out a $1000 package knowing I couldn't afford it...I would simply find something completely different...and more often, it was better (even if it had a smaller userbase).
"In this case, I benefited from other people's attendance."
In most cases, classes benefit through peer interaction / learning. In the cases I've seen, having a peer group that in involved will increase your knowledge about one letter grade over those that don't participate.
I've been involved as both a student and an educator, and as a student, it was annoying that I was required to show up to class. It was only in grad school that I realized the value of attendance (that and I studied experiential learning as one of my main focuses). I decided to get away from my graduate degree and go for something completely different requiring ANOTHER undergrad degree, and it is funny...but just showing up to every damn class...I get almost all As...nothing different from my previous study methods.
Beyond this, when I do instruct, I don't want students in my class if they are not going to participate. I don't want to waste 15 minutes to get class started and take attendance. Students are more than welcome to find another section if they don't like the rules...and my students -- on a common final -- generally do far better than the other sections taking the class.
The students may be paying for SOME of the class, but the majority of their tuition comes from elsewhere. I have to deal with instructor evaluations and otherwise...I am evaluated and my position is ranked based on grades and withdraw rates -- we call them the DFW rates -- Ds Fs and Withdraws (and I am not penalized for students dropping in the first two weeks...so there is plenty of time for them to find something else if they don't like my policy).
Students are adults, but they are paying us to teach them. If they don't want to take our teaching methods, they can go elsewhere. The teaching methods are designed to be the most scientific method of teaching possible with evidence that it works. Problem is, if educators don't care, and don't do anything other than heard the students into a room and do the same boring things they always did...the students won't benefit from this.
BTW -- I took an undergrad course this spring (final was just last Thursday) and we were required to carry wifi response cards for in-class quizzes and polls. We got full participation points for the polls and 50% of the quiz just for showing up. There were enough points built in that one could miss about a quarter of the classes and STILL get full participation points (beyond that, extra credit if you were on the edge and the prof wanted to bump you). As a student, I felt cheated when I saw a few students never showing up and having a buddy press random buttons on the dozen cards they brought in...actually, I shouldn't care because they helped lower the curve for me...but still...reminded me of my first go around with college and made me realize how much of a slackass I was (which pissed me off more!)
This is where you are wrong...well other than the part about me being stupid...that's pretty much right...
But regardless of how stupid you are, unless you have a physical mental disability, you have an ability to learn almost anything. If you are motivated.
I specifically took a non-calculus physics class -- it is a little slower, but the math is easier -- because I wanted to learn a bit more of the hard sciences before I started a PhD as I realized I was focusing on the soft side a little too much. And in my field, no one is going to stop you from doing so and I needed a kick in the ass.
I have to say, after two semesters...my math skills from just having to figure out how shit works? I'm learning more now than when I slept through my classes 20 years ago and BARELY passed (I looked through my old transcripts when I applied to grad school a few years ago, and I was shocked at how bad these scores were! I knew they were bad, but I didn't remember this bad!!!) But little things that make a LOT of difference...I can throw equations into a calc and get the answer, or flip things around to get an algebraic equation that I could solve with a bit of programming...and this is an art to know how to find the answer in a manner that wasn't taught 20 years ago (and still isn't in a math course).
But LITTLE things that I pick up -- for instance, everyone I know that took a math course looks at me like I'm an idiot, but I never realized until about 3 months ago that X^-4 was the same as 1/(X^4) -- but while doing an equation I noticed this and ended up doing several other equations to verify my find before googling it and realizing a negative exponent simply means to find the inverse of a number. I don't remember this EVER being something in a class I had taken...it might have been, but I was probably out drunk that day.
The point is, yes, I am stupid...have been stupid, and will be stupid, but isn't something that will stop me from learning. Hell, nature abhors a vacuum and this applies to intelligence as well...we are programed much like nature to fill every space we can...sometimes it is from random trivia if we have no other purpose, sometimes it is math -- if we realize that it is beneficial to know this...
Oh yeah, and art? There is NO art that you either have or don't have. My background in psychology is quantifying creative aspects. All art is, is specific craft in one area (i.e., in painting it is knowing how mix colors and move your hands...in song writing, it is the knowledge of chord progressions along with how to rhyme words in specific meters) which is a learned and trainable activity -- mixed with broad intelligence. Broad intelligence is that outside of a single field...how do you tie multiple areas together to get something new and novel. It is why I took Physics to learn to be a better psychologist than taking more of the same in psychology (which I will have to do regardless)...and it has already taught me to look at certain problems in a different light.
People that say that they were born artistic were most certainly not. They may not understand all the inputs they have had over the years, or may choose to pretend it is not important. But most certainly, they were not artistic all by themselves...they learned a craft and then they learned creativity (maybe not in that order)...
Because it is the basis of all fields of science.
And quite a few fields of art.
I *HATE* math, but I use it every single day, and in the areas I'm known for, I can do the math needed...mostly in my head. I've also found that as I've tried to branch out of my areas of expertise, that I can't rely on the few areas of math that I know fluently, because I'm starting to bang my head against the ceiling.
For instance, I took a few basic undergrad courses recently (I have a masters in psychology), and I couldn't remember the damn quadratic equation...I could get the answer just fine -- if I wanted to spend 15 minutes solving it (or as I did, write a quick plot app on my laptop to show the answers figuring it out computationally as opposed to mathematically)...and it was only after one of my twenty-something classmates looked at me and said Dude, Why Don't You Just Use The Quadratic Equation that I realized how much I had forgotten (I had no use for math 20 years ago and slept through this).
It is funny how knowing the simple concepts can make your life simple. Anyone can brute force just about anything.
If you don't want to do anything science based...and this includes almost any social science even if people think these are not real...or any advanced art (I have a friend that does weavings, and to get what she wants, and for the patterns to work out in real life, not just paper, she needs to know math to get these to work)...math is the basis for all of this. Oh and the chess algs? it is all math...pretty advanced math...it isn't chess these guys were after...it was computational mathmatics to attack a human problem.
This summer, I am signing up for a 100 level math course and getting the basics back again...I wish I would have done it before...it sucks that I can get results from Mathematica or SPSS, but I can't do simple algebraic equations. You might not think it interesting or necessary, but then again, I can't tell if you are being serious or if your humor is just VERY dry...if you are serious...wow...
I've met several folks from Behringer over the years, and talked with them about their manufacturing processes and otherwise. It is amazing the stories you hear from people in competition to them, only to work for them later...if the truth was there in the first place, why did they go to the company?
The fact is, most of the complaints are unfounded...they automated the process that most companies had to have hired skilled workers to assemble and match. This pisses off a LOT of people in the audio world that assume that because the way it was always done should be the way it is done in the future. In fact, their process makes the QA a little better. Will products still break? Sure...but far less that anything else similarly priced. Equal to that much higher.
I know of a few companies that have investigated their processes to automate their lines the same way...the tide is turning toward how Behringer does things...but you still get the reputation based on an industry of complaints. (BTW, my Tascam digital mixer did the same thing...had it repaired and its now doing the same thing...luckily, I have a new alesis interface so I don't have to worry bout it right now...even if it means I have a few less channels right now)...
Ottercase. I take my phone with me while I'm climbing as well...took a serious whipper and banged the side of the wall. Leg was bruised up except for the rectangle of where the phone was in my pocket.
Sadly, the phone was alright and I ended up having to buy my 3GS on my own a few weeks later...
"It's just an overgrown PDA."
To some of us, this is perfect.
I have a superpowerful desktop that I can use if I need to...honestly, except when I'm needing to process 100 tracks of audio at once or need a compiling station for the few times a decade I actually get back to programming, I rarely turn it on (and even with my music, my laptop or macmini that is ultraquiet and fits in my rack case in a smaller slot than any of my outboard gear is powerful enough).
I have an iPhone for 99% of the rest of what I do these days...I felt constricted to my office otherwise until I picked this up. I've been a gadget junkie for most of my 4 decades on this earth and the last device that was as compact as my iPhone that was useful to me? My Newton...had to invest in cargo pants to have this with me (had palm and a sony branded palm before those...or was it after...I forget).
I can get to my servers anywhere with my phone...can do just about anything. And yeah, I can do that on my friends Droids or Win phones, but never quite as easily or quickly...the OS just gets the hell out of the way with this device which should be the goal of ANY device so that you can focus on the task at hand.
My only complaint with the iPhone is that the screen is too small. I still find myself using it more often even at home or the office than I do my computers sitting around (and in some ways, I use to do that with my other gadgets...its faster to pull up email on a device where it is always running...I thought of buying one of those Peek emailer devices for the same reason (and they are pretty cool, but when I tried one, was slow for what I needed...didn't speed up my life and one more gadget).
So yes, an overgrown PDA might be EXACTLY what is needed. I played with the Dell Tablet, but it felt like using a PC with a stylus. I generally like Dell products if I go the PC route (at least the business class ones...other than the one I'm installing today has no fricken XP drivers and I'm having to scour the net to get the appropriate install!!!) and I thought it would be great. Honestly, it felt more cumbersome using than simply having laptop with a wacom on it. Why aren't tablet PCs going anywhere? Because they think they are PCs (I saw one recently that once you unplugged the keys and otherwise, it pulled up a custom tablet environment that was simplified to this world...might have to see if I can get a loaner sometime to check it out!).
So current tablets don't work because they try to be too much. PDAs are perfect because they don't. Geeks don't get that...limiting what you can do will help you focus on your job, not focus on technology. If your job IS technology...well, then this is the wrong device for you. If you job is making certain you get your life together? A more limited device with the appropriate apps might just be the thing...My only concern right now is I don't want to carry two deviced (i.e., if the pad could be a phone too, it would be an instant choice...except for the times my headphones run out of juice, but then again, I also find it just as akward to hold the iphone as well and just throw it on speaker 90% of the time!)
"Allowing heirs to sit on this "property" indefinitely does not surve this purpose."
Why not? I have a friend that died a few years ago, and one of the last things he did was to finish a large work who's real purpose wasn't to cement his status in history but because the work was so well noted that while he was actively dying, he was able to negotiate a MUCH better contract so his children could be properly taken care of.
I know he would have rather spent more time with his kids than working, but their long term wellbeing was much more important to him. Disagree with what might have been more important for his kids or not, but the fact that the law sided with him was the entire reason he wrote the last work. And as such, it most certainly served the purposes as intended.
No, my people are dwindling to nothing...the boss is REALLY trying to get me back into the IT role, but wants me to keep the rest as well...kinda sucks.
One of the most educated people, but dealing with folks that think of me as the nerd because they can't imagine someone being great at more than one thing at a time...
I use to program, and technically, I have people that report to me that program -- but most of the time, I wave my hand and tell them do what they do just get it done (and give vague timelines where I don't have to think about it).
These days, I quit and went into psychology where I don't have to think nerdy thoughts...but the telling thing was, one of the grad electives was something in industrial organization and taught by one of the HR assholes that use to make my life hell in my old life. Funny thing was, even this person noted that it is very hard to motivate someone to work more than 60% of their efficiency for more than a short amount of time. Sure, crunch time comes in, and you can get people to do it...but push too long and you get a much lower output. Expect to have folks work abut 60% of the time and they are the most effective.
I forget the lit behind it (I was working more towards clinical psych, but it was interesting to see the other end), but it was pretty persuasive. I know when I was programming...I did the same amount of work if I came in 20 hours in one week and got things done vs. worked 40 hours and stuck behind the desk. Unfortunately, the idiots that were pretty much place keepers and needed to do things like ANSWER THE PHONE didn't like this, so my arrangements of WE PAY YOU TO GET THE JOB DONE NOT BY THE HOUR didn't work very long (its funny how this flexible time arrangement works if you have to be around 90 hours a week but doesn't when you are only there 20).
Me? I encourage downtime with my staff. They get their job done and thats all I care...if they can't, they leave. This rarely happens.